


pulled down by the undertow (the winter here is cold and bitter)

by hishn_greywalker



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dark, Gen, angsty, death!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-03
Updated: 2007-02-03
Packaged: 2018-10-20 19:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10669398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hishn_greywalker/pseuds/hishn_greywalker
Summary: Three years, seven days and two hours after he kills Sammy, Dean kills the yellow-eyed demon.





	pulled down by the undertow (the winter here is cold and bitter)

**Author's Note:**

> Um, so I don't know where this came from. I just finished writing porn for [](http://superpornsunday.livejournal.com/profile)[superpornsunday](http://superpornsunday.livejournal.com/) not an hour before this and then um, this happened. These lyrics have been sitting there waiting for me to write fic about them, but this wasn't what I was going to write. oh well. Lyrics by Johnny Cash, title by Sarah McLachlan. Unbeta'd, leave note of mistakes and I'll fix them.

_There were nights I don't remember_  
And there's pain that I've forgotten  
Other things I choose not to recall  
There are faces that come to me  
In my darkest secret memory  
Faces that I wish would not come back at all  
-johnny cash

He could remember Dean sometimes. Or, he thought that the person he was remembering was named Dean. He wasn't sure though, not about anything from before.

Sometimes, though, he remembers a face, and Dean, or the person he thinks is Dean, telling him he loves him, that he's his brother, how can he ask him to do this? Please Sammy, come back to me, don't leave me, Sammy, you're all I have.

He doesn't remember what happened to Dean, or where he is, or any of that. He just remembers pain, and loss. He always forces himself to forget again then, because he doesn't like pain, or loss, or anything related to it.

He tries not to remember Dean, because he always feels pain when he remembers Dean. Because whenever he remembers Dean he remembers that something's wrong with him, and he doesn't like that. He remembers a time when he was different. He doesn't know how to be different now.

 

 

Dean catches up to Sammy three months and seven days after he turned. They all tried to warn him it would happen – he killed six of them for trying to take matters into their own hands when he wouldn't do anything about it – but he wasn't willing to do anything until it was a done deal.

The thing he catches up to isn't really Sam anymore, not really. When it looks at him, it doesn't know him. It doesn't see Dean, doesn't see a brother, a friend, the only thing he had for the last five years, and the only constant in the 22 before that.

He has to fight it, and this time he knows he can't pull his punches. He's crying by the time he get's Sammy on his knees, because he knows Sammy, knows how he fights, knows every weakness and this – this thing that's not Sam – doesn't know his, not like Sam would have.

"Sammy," he cokes out, his throat closing up, "Sam."

Something in the eyes flicker. "Dean?" it asks, unsure.

"Yeah Sammy, it's me. I'm here," Dean doesn't let the gun, loaded with silver bullets blessed and doused in holy water by Father Reynolds, who'd helped them out a time or two since the incident with Father Gregory, waver.

"Dean, it hurts. Dean." He knows that's all that's left of his brother. The pain, that's his brother feeling it. But his brother isn't his brother, isn't all there, never will be. This… thing… has taken hold, infested him. He hadn't turned, he'd been taken over. Sam isn't Sam anymore, and he can't ever be Sam again.

Dean holds the gun steady but reaches out with his other hand, as if he was going to touch his brother one more time. "I know Sammy, I know. I'm gonna fix it, okay bud? I'm gonna make the pain go away."

"Dean," Sammy-not-Sammy whimpers.

Dean takes a deep breath, his eyes so full of tears he can barely see, and pulls the trigger.

 

 

Three years, seven days and two hours after he kills Sammy, Dean kills the yellow-eyed demon. He's alone when he does it, but seven other hunters show up within minutes. Dean is still standing over the scorch marks of where the demon combusted.

None of them know what to say to him, or even if they should say anything. He hasn't spoken unless it involved the hunt of this demon since he had to kill his brother, hasn't touched anything but his weapons and his car since that day.

He still drives the Impala, despite five near misses with the FBI. Every single hunter out there knows that Dean Winchester was never guilty of anything the FBI said he was, not until the day he killed his brother. It's still up in the air if the things they claim he did after are true. To a one, they're not sure if they want to know the truth.

The last hunter to arrive walks past them all, straight up to Dean. "It done for good?" she asks, her voice softer than any of them have ever heard.

"Yeah," Dean breathes, and the rest of them watch warily. They're not sure what's been going on in Dean Winchester's head for the last while, and they're not sure if it's safe to let their guard down.

"Yeah, Sammy, it's done," he says, and they all know he isn't answering Jo.

He turns and walks away from them then, and none of them follow him.

It's the last time anyone sees Dean Winchester.

 

 

Six years later, the FBI still haven't given up hope of finding him. Ellen sighs, telling herself she can't be mad at them for beating a dead horse when she can't convince them the horse is dead. She doesn't know how much longer she can keep telling herself that though, not when every time she sees them she's reminded of two boys who broke into her Roadhouse because of a message she'd left their dead father four months before he died, trying to find answers they don't really want to know.

"Can I help you, gentlemen?" she asks them anyways, just like she always does.

They're silent a long while, exchanging glances and from the looks of it, fighting over who has to do the talking. "We – we have some bad news ma'am," one of them tells her finally. She doesn't like the sound of this.

"Well, then you best tell me quick, because I've had enough bad news lately. No need to draw it out." She doesn't need to be reminded of the number of people she's known that have died in the last 20 years, most of them in a five year period right before Dean Winchester disappeared. Right before the yellow-eyed demon died, and the war was ended.

"Ma'am, do you know these two boys?"

They're the same pictures they've always shown her, always to go with that question. A bad shot of Sam from his Stanford school ID and a mug shot of Dean from Baltimore.

"I've told you guys again and again, those two boys are dead. I don't know how many times I've got to tell you-"

One of them cuts her off. "You know?"

"Know their dead? I've been trying to tell you that for six God damn years!" She doesn't know how much communication FBI agents have with each other, but she's convinced it's just about none by now.

They glance at each other, unsure. "We found their bodies, ma'am, if that makes any difference," one of them tells her, unsure and maybe a little bit scared.

It does. Ellen stumbles a little, then sits down hard on a bar stool. She'd known for years now, had Dean's word on Sam and known Dean wasn't going to stick around long once the yellow-eyed demon had been killed. It was one thing to know something, another to have proof.

"Oh God, Sammy, Dean." She closes her eyes. When she opens them again the tears that might have been there were gone. "Where?" All that's left is cold, hard, hunter, despite that she's never left this bar since her husband died.

"In the Beartooth Range, in Montana. A rancher found them."

Ellen nodded. "Sammy died three years before Dean did," she tells them, so they know if they didn't already. None of it makes a difference now, anyways.

They look somewhat surprised, but don't say anything, so she continues. "Dean killed him. I'll assume he killed himself as well."

The agents only nod.

"Good," she tells them. "Now get out of my saloon. I don't ever want to see one of you again. You've done enough damage to us."

She doesn't tell them who 'us' is, doesn't tell them how she knew anything she did. They don't ask, sure they'd never get an answer.

Somehow, Ellen doesn't think that she'll ever stop being haunted by the two boys she knew so long ago, or the sad quiet shadow that was Dean she saw the last time he came through her bar. She doesn't think she'll ever forget how hard Sam tried to stop what was inventible and the look in Dean's eyes when he told her that it was done, Sam was dead. She doesn't think the sound of Dean's voice as he told her any one who went after Sam would be killed will ever not haunt her sleep, or that she'll ever be able to watch two boys together and not think of them pulling pranks each other the last time she saw them together. Despite that, she doesn't have it in her to hate them for it.

She doesn't think anyone else out there does either, not after the price the Winchester paid to end this.

  



End file.
